4/5 stars

Clash of Clans has been on the iOS market since 2012, influencing
many other games with it's style of gameplay. While my rating is no
different from the rating it currently has in the iOS App Store,
I will walk you through what you can expect from the game,
as well as why I gave it that rating. At the end,
I will tell you whether or not I recommend the app and
my current playing status on it.

Starting the Game

At the core of the game, is strategy. This is why, when the game first starts, it starts off very simple. You are given a town hall, a builder hut, army camp, and an annoying town person to guide you through the basics of the game.

**I restarted the game on another device since I began the game back in 2014, and the introduction has been revised. You start off battling with goblins and wizards, (in the demo that shows you how to train your troops) which previously took a chunk of time to discover in the game (pretty sure they were added to the game over time actually).

From the beginning you are guided by the townsperson into strengthening your town. This includes building another builder’s hut, upgrading things, building defenses and so forth.

What I do suggest during this time is to simply wait it out and to not use all your gems on speeding up the building process, even if the game suggests it. This is because gems are somewhat of a precious resource in the game, and can unlock nice features, such as extra builder huts.

It is at this point that you are also introduced to other key game features, such as the campaign map, choosing your screen name (which you want to choose wisely because it is not really up for changes), how to access your profile.

After the mini tutorial, you are left in charge of the game. This means, it is up to your discretion how much or how little time and effort you want to put into the game. You are the chief and can decide what you spend your gold and elixir on, and what it is that you want to upgrade (ie–>the main strategy part of the game).

For me, this was the best part of the game. The game still ~feels~ like new during this part of the gameplay (and this feeling lasted a while for me).

Choosing a Clan

As it is with many games available on mobile platforms currently, you can join a group within the game to unlock extra game play features. This is probably something that you want to do, so that you can access those extra features, such as clan wars.

However, there obviously isn’t a great way to choose a clan. The best ways to go about it is to look at the clan rankings, or if that doesn’t matter so much to you, you could always just pick one that sounds cool. There is also always the option to make a clan, so that you can have one almost exclusively for you and your friends. This is a nice option, but keep in mind, to access clan wars you have a quota of members to meet.

Leagues and Battles

There are various leagues that the game has, depending on how many trophies you acquire through successfully attacking villages or protecting your own village. You can choose to attack people by clicking from the side of the campaign map. Both of these game aspects are a nice incentive to really get into the multiplayer aspect of the game and battle others to rank up.

However, like with most features of the game, once I got further into the game this part of the game for me lost interest.

Building your Village

This is really the main focal point for the game (or at least it became so for me). This part of the game requires the highest level of strategy (along with choosing what to build and upgrade). The layout of the village is one of the keys to success in the game. It is up to you as the player to choose an efficient layout that is structured to protect resources (elixir and gold) by strategically placing your defense mechanisms. As you level up your town hall in the game, you unlock more defense features (aka: incentive to level up). What I have always done since I started the game is look at the top ranking players villages, in order to grasp which layouts might be the best.

One cool feature that got added in (perhaps a little over a year ago?) is the ability to design multiple layouts through the layout editor, and to save up to three different layouts. Only one can be active, but the ability and ease to change the design of your villages layout is very handy.

Holidays

Holidays on the game are cool in that the designers take the time to redecorate the game. This means Christmas trees, cauldrons, and other holiday themed items will show up around the holiday (and the loading menu changes). If you choose not to tear the decorations down, you are able to hold onto those decorations year round, even after that particular holiday season passes. Holidays are also cool because there are specific events that pop up during this time, where discounts are offered, and other things can be unlocked.

The Boat/Builder Village

Something the game has recently added was a boat off to the side of the village. If your town hall is level 4 or higher, you can repair the boat for free, which then will grant you access to the builder’s village. Basically, it’s a fancy way of restarting the game over without having to actually start it over.

For me, it brought back the love I had when first playing the game, and got me reinvested in the game enough to check it daily. Supposedly, doing things, or accomplishing things within the Builder’s Village will unlock features within your home village. I have yet to access/accomplish this yet though.

I think Super Cell (the company behind the game) added this into the game in order to bring players back to the game, as well as provide a way to give the game extra features without completely having to revamp the game (as we can see they have done a few times).

GRAPHICS/ANIMATIONS

One of the things that I do absolutely love about the game is many of it’s graphics. From the animations of the people walking/sleeping through the tall grass (that even react to you when you poke them) to the way figures run around the village, I continue to be impressed with the level of skill and effort they put into the graphics of the game (which, in comparison is very simplistic in design).

How I feel about the game three years on

I just recently started playing the game again. Over the last 2-2.5 years, I played it less than twenty times. What had started out a game that was hard to put down (the challenge! the battles! all the incentives!) became a game that had lost interest to me. Part of this was because I felt as though I had reached a stalemate in the game. I didn’t feel as though I was progressing, or if I was, it seemed very slow. This is in large part I think due to how the game is structured, where it takes so much time to upgrade things once the levels get higher. Taking a week to have a spell factory or an archer tower leveled up meant that I looked at the game less and less. Also, the prices to upgrade things or to purchase new ones also got very staggering, which at first I took on as a challenge, but after a while, combined with the time it took to upgrade, just made me less interested and invested in the gameplay itself.

However, that being said, I did recently begin playing the game again. One of the good things about this game, is that after so long of not playing it, I was still able to get right back into the game within a day. Right now my focus is on training troops and conquering the campaign map, which still has about 40 stars left, and this has helped me stay invested in the game. This, and the builder village I mentioned previously.

I will update this review a few months down the line, after I finish the campaign map and have seemingly maxed out the builder village, to say if I can manage to still be invested enough to play.

would play again/Still playing

want to join my clan? (Since I went 2+ years without playing its in shambles) but if you really want to, it is I)(I La5t Aliv3

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